This Ex-NFL Player Is On A Mission To Become A Chess Master

Having mastered football and math, John Urschel has his sights on chess.

When
John Urschel retired from the NFL last year after just 3 seasons with
the Baltimore Ravens, it made headlines. In recent years, several young
players, including Chris Borland of the 49ers, have bowed out of the
sport early due to growing concerns over the potential for long-term
brain damage, but Urschel’s motivation was different: he just didn’t
have time for football anymore. He was getting a PhD in math at MIT.

The
idea of a 300-pound offensive lineman trading in his helmet for a
protractor obviously generated a lot of interest, as well as a lot of
bad math/football puns. Now, Urschel has quietly set himself a new goal:
he wants to become a chess master.You
might think someone who spends his days studying Laplacian eigenvectors
would pick a hobby that’s a little more restful on the brain.

But for
Urschel, the appeal of math and the appeal of chess are very similar.
“As a mathematician, I really like to understand the structure of
things,” he says. “[Chess] is very mathematical to me. You’re playing a
game, you’re faced with some position, you’re trying to figure out the
way to proceed, and you don’t really know in most cases if I play this
move or that move, if that’s winning, if it’s losing, if it’s drawing...
It doesn’t feel that much different from being faced with a
mathematical problem and trying to reason your way through.”